This invention relates to the delivery of multi-media signals such as television to clients via computer networks such as the Internet. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for selectively receiving time scheduled signals from a plurality of sources and at the request of a client, for the client.
In the course of the following description, television signals are mentioned as a most common example but the media program signals could be any media signals such as broadcast AM or FM, television or any other signals desired by a client. Also, the term “time scheduled signals” is employed to mean any type of signal the presentation time of which is known but the time of presentation is not generally controlled by the provider of services herein. Such time scheduled signals may include, broadcast television, broadcast FM, cable television and FM, satellite television and FM signals and closed circuit presentations.
The modern television and FM user has a wide array of possible signal sources available from which to choose. Such sources include standard broadcast television, cable network and satellite systems of many varieties. Each of these systems and others not named require a different type of receiver/decoder and most users have only one or two types of service which they can actually receive. Economically, the user cannot afford to have access to all or even most of the sources of media programming. Further, even when a person can afford to own all of the equipment, much of it will be seldom used and thus not an economic value.
Cable television systems are an attempt to provide full media coverage to households by sharing the costs of receiving many types of signals and delivering those signals to users in a standard format. Although the costs of a cable system can be shared by many users, the bandwidth available for cable revenue is limited so the cable service providers decide on a general basis which media channels will be available to their subscribers. Thus the range of available programs is limited. What is needed in the art is a media delivery system which has shared usage so that many types of signal source formats can be afforded while permitting individual users to specifically request which media programs they want to receive at any given time.
Such a shared media program reception method and apparatus satisfies other needs in the art. Video tape recorders (VTR), which are often video cassette recorders (VCR), are common today and are present in many if not most households. The VTR itself includes many complex mechanical and electrical functions and is subject to many types of well-known failures. Without a back-up VTR at the user's home, a failure may prevent recording a desired program. With a VTR, a viewer can record from broadcast media and play the recording back at a later time. Although most modern VTRs enable some rather sophisticated procedures for recording selected future programs, it appears from the popular press that most households are not capable of using those procedures. The most common use of the VTR is to manually turn on the recording function at the time the program is to be recorded is airing or to play pre-recorded tapes. Systems such as VCR+ have been developed which simplify the operation needed for recording future programs but these normally add cost to the recording system and are still too complicated for use in many households. The result is that consumers have not achieved the television viewing freedom they might if recording were less expensive and easier to perform.
Recently, products such as TiVo of Sunnyvale, Calif. (www.TiVo.com) and Replay TV of Mountain View, Calif. (www.ReplayTV.Com) have come into the market, providing a new way of recording broadcast programming at the viewer's location. These products, which are called home hard drive systems herein, use a “set-top box” at the viewer's premises to receive video programs available to the consumer and to store related ones of the available programs. Storage occurs on a high capacity hard disk drive located inside the set-top box. Such a home hard drive system may cost from $500 to $1,500 at this writing and like VTRs, they are subject to mechanical and electrical failures which can leave the consumer without a means of recording a desired program. Further, the video programs in many homes are delivered through cable TV receivers/decoders and/or direct satellite TV receivers/decoders. In order to properly store video programs from such receiver/decoders, the home hard drive systems must control the operation of the separate receivers/decoders. Otherwise, the receivers/decoders would not be turned on to the proper signal source when needed. Such control is usually exercised by the transmission of infrared control signals from the home hard drive system, however, training from the home hard drive system to perform such tasks may be difficult and may also be subject to failures.
Another problem of the home hard drive systems, is that like VTRs, storage is at the viewer's premises and is limited to storage of programs which are already available at the consumer's premises. Lastly, the home hard drive systems contain a fixed amount of storage, and, should more storage be needed, such can be added only by expensive and complex replacement and/or augmentation of their high capacity disk drive.
What is needed in the art is an improved broadcast media recording system which avoids per viewing device storage equipment and which provides a simplified human/machine interface to access media programs available in different geographic locations from the viewer's location.